Mark of the Fool
Chapter 494: Golem Songs and Minds

“You can talk! You can talk! You can talk!” Selina screamed, jumping up and down.

“I…I can talk!” Claygon’s voice boomed over the rooftops, rolling into white clouds high above. From a nearby building, a flock of pigeons fled, launching into the air, screeching in panic.

The golem froze, then shouted, “Sorry!” The word booming through the entire neighbourhood. In the distance, dogs abruptly barked and howled, bringing Brutus bounding up the stairs, answering their frantic voices with his own rumbling growls.

Alex burst out laughing while his sister collapsed in hysterics, unable to stop giggling.

“That’s it, buddy!” He cheered. “Let the world hear your voice!”

“Yes!” Selina pumped her fists. “Shout! Let everyone know you’re here!”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Theresa held up her hands. “Maybe we shouldn’t terrify our new neighbours three days after moving in. Maybe that’s not the first impression we want to give them.”

“I’ll speak…a lot quieter.” Claygon’s voice boomed from the speakerbox, dropping in volume with each word until it was only slightly louder than Alex’s. “Is…this acceptable?”

“Look how smart my son is! Hah!” Alex cried. “Yes, that’s perfect. Well, buddy? How’s it feel? How’s it feel!?”

Static crackled from the speakerbox.

What came next caught the young wizard by surprise: Claygon’s voice was now high and thin.

A child’s voice.

“How does this sound, father?” He asked.

“It surprised me,” Selina cut in. “But I think it sounds cute.”

“Cute?”

“Yeah, cute. Like you.”

The golem cocked his head in confusion, and it was obvious. Alex decided not to examine too closely what it meant that he found a ten-foot-tall-doom-golem- with-a-permanently-snarling-face cute, and what that said about his mind. “Honestly, Claygon?” Alex shrugged. “It doesn’t matter what I think. It’s your voice, and you’re one of the rare folk in this world who can choose what their own voice sounds like. You can keep your first voice, you can sound like a child—you are very young, after all—or you can even sound like a talking bear if you really wanted to. It’s your choice, buddy! And that’s the beautiful thing about it.”

Claygon watched Alex with care for a long moment, a flurry of emotions dancing through their link. Some happiness lay there, alongside nerves, and apprehension.

‘Choice paralysis,’ Alex thought to himself.

“You can take all the time in the world in making your choice. Heck, I built that speakerbox to replicate any sound you want: you can change voices every week or even every day if you want, just like how I would change my shirt and pants.”

“...Thank you…I will take time…thinking about what I want…” the golem said.

Another flurry of emotions. Happiness. More nerves. Relief.

“I…would like…to makea song. Can I—” He paused.

Resolve flashed through their link.

“I will make a song,” Claygon said, his voice sounding like an old man’s.

A crackle rose from the speakerbox.

Followed soon after by a song.

It was a simple tune: one Alex remembered Toraka’s music golem playing in her office. It held a smoky crackle, giving the melody an ethereal softness, while the singer’s voice—a woman’s—was low, rich and soothing.

The golem began to sway back and forth, calm spreading through his link with his father. And the song itself? A sad one. The singer’s words told of lost loves, regrets, the pain of loneliness, and the evils of drink. Her warbling tone was dramatic, meant to bring tears to the eye and melancholy to the heart.

But neither tears of sadness, nor melancholy were anywhere to be found in Claygon; only quiet, contented, triumphant feelings were what emanated from his core.

“The song sounds sad,” Selina whispered to Alex.

“It’s not sad to Claygon,” he whispered back. “For him? It’s a song of triumph.”

“A song of triumph.” Theresa’s hand slipped into his. “I like that.”

For a long time, the little family stood in silence, listening to the golem’s song as it drifted through the air and over the neighbourhood.

The only other sound to be heard was Brutus whining, communing with their canine neighbours baying in the distance.

Another day found Claygon making music again, though—instead of a sunny day on a rooftop—it was a cloudy evening deep within the bowels of Shale’s golemworks.

In Toraka’s lab, the golem leaned against a wall, softly playing a bard’s song of remembrance and battle, presenting a contrasting backdrop to the hiss of hot iron being connected to hot iron.

“Steady…” Shale warned, squinting through her mask’s lenses. “Steady…keep that alignment straight…”

“I’ve got it, Toraka, I’ve got it…just this last part and…there we go.” Alex lifted the soldering torch away from the metal, scrutinising the joint between the golem’s arm and its shoulder. “It looks level to me. You?”

She paused soldering the plate she was attaching, taking in his work at a glance. “Perfect. And I’m almost done here too.” Carefully, the master craftswoman finished the iron golem’s leg joint, giving it a visual inspection and nodding to herself in satisfaction. “Very good. All done on this end.”

She took a few steps away from the vast craft table, regarding the iron golem from the tip of its toes, to its crown. “That’s it. The body’s finished.”

“Good job,” Alex congratulated her. “And uh…” He looked at another table. “By the Traveller, I think we’re ready for the final step.”

On that table a massive orb lay, glowing with a purple-violet hue: the golem core for Toraka’s first dungeon core-infused iron golem. It blazed with an awesome power, and a deep well of inner mana satwithin its form. To Alex’s mind, it was…slightly on the unimpressive side.

Its power was a fraction of Claygon’s core, and it generated mana with far less efficiency. He saw it only as proof of a successful concept that could be brought to market.

But for Toraka, it was far more, the master crafter oozed excitement.

From time to time, she threw hungry, impatient looks toward the core, her eagerness bleeding from her body language in torrents.

And now?

Now, she watched it as though awestruck, a naked yearning burning in her eyes. “This is truly it, isn’t it?” Her tone was hushed. “I want to see it work.”

“Then, I guess there’s no reason to delay,” Alex said.

Together, they began the final process of attaching the core.

Strict procedure was followed, of course—though Toraka seemed almost keen to cast it aside—by attaching the mana vacuum to the core, while being ready to drain away uncontrolled mana should the golem go berserk.

With a pull of a lever, she raised the iron golem into an upright position, the head of the metallic craft table rising until the construct’s feet settled on the floor. Chains snaked down from the ceiling, wrapping around the iron body, holding it upright and binding its movements in the event of a rampage.

From his place at the side of the lab, Claygon stopped ‘singing’, now watching the next step with interest.

“The golem’s going…to be born,” he spoke in the voice of a tenor, all clear, rich and warm. “I’m glad…I get to see this birth.”

“If it’s half as fascinating as you are, I’m going to call this a major win.” Toraka said to him.

“I hope you get…your major win.”

“Well aren’t you precious,” she chuckled warmly, looking at Alex as he locked a scaffold into place behind the iron golem’s back. “Did I ever tell you he’s precious?”

“You have, and you’re right.” Alex scaled the scaffolding. “And we’re going to give you a precious one of your own, soon enough. Care to do the honours?”

With surprising agility, Toraka clambered up the scaffold, scaling it with the ease of a squirrel. “Of course I want the honours—no wait.” She placed one hand on the golem core, leaving room for Alex to take the other side.

They nodded to each other.

Then inserted the core together. With the greatest care, junior crafter and master crafter attached the core to the iron golem’s inner mana circuitry.

They poured in mana from the mana vacuum.

A pulse of power spread through the air as mana ran along inner pathways. The clinking of metal plates shuddered through the room as the golem’s body began to twitch.

“Here we go…” Alex murmured, his hand steady on the mana vacuum.

With a rush of power, the golem’s fingers clenched.

“Yes…” Toraka’s eyes shone. “I can feel our connection forming.”

The core’s internal structures ignited—power raged within the construct’s body. Slowly, the iron head turned, taking stock of the room from all directions.

Iron hands moved smoothly, spinning in their wrist sockets.

Hands clenched, snapping into fists.

The internal reaction settled.

Silence hung over the room until Toraka drew in a deep, trembling breath. “This is it,” she murmured in wonder. “It worked. The power, I can’t believe the power.”

“Welcome to the world…” Clagyon spoke, his voice returning to its initial deep, gravelly, tones. “...do you…have a mind?”

Alex looked at Toraka searchingly, but she was already shaking her head.

“I don’t feel a mind in there,” she admitted. “Sorry.”

A flash of disappointment reached from Claygon to Alex, quickly dispersing.

“I…expected…too much…” he said.

“Well, it’s often better that golems don’t have minds…uh, present company excluded,” Toraka smiled quickly. “You’re a very good golem, Claygon, but I’ve heard of some nasty ones.” Her look turned grim. “I heard of a golem once who was owned by a wizard, who used to take it out hunting. Well, that golem developed a taste for blood and bonded strongly with its master. The master died one day, and the golem kept doing what it had always done: it hunted. But without the master to guide it, it took to hunting whatever it wanted.”

She sighed deeply. “And what it decided to hunt was people, for some reason.”

“Did the people harm him…?” Claygon asked.

“No, it just didn’t like people. Or it decided to kill them because it thought they’d make challenging prey. Or maybe it was following one of its master’s last, crazed orders. No one knows the reason. All people knew was that the golem had to be stopped…and…it took a lot to stop it. It was an iron golem, and had a fair number of upgrades to give it extra power and onboard weapons.”

Her eyes drifted to the ceiling as she searched her memories. “I think…it had killed half a thousand people over a decade before it was finally cornered and destroyed. Awful story. And there've been many other golems who’ve lost themselves to some form of madness or another. It’s why sometimes it’s a good thing golems don’t have minds. One wrong turn of thought, and you have an immortal, almost unstoppable killer on your hands. No offence.”

Claygon paused, taking in her words for a long moment.

The connection between him and his father was silent as the golem’s emotions went blank. Alex was looking at Toraka, hiding a mixture of anger and horror.

Her story had been true, and he’d heard similar tales before, but he couldn’t help but see what she’d said to Claygon as highly offensive.

Before he could say a word, though, the golem’s voice boomed from his speakerbox.

“I see…then…that makes sense…” His words were clear. “Golems with minds can be dangerous…so it is a good thing when they don’t have them. …then by that logic…people should not have minds either.”

“Yes…what?”

“I have…seen people…do…evil things. Animals kill. People kill. Demons are immortal and they kill too. None of them…should have minds, then.” His voice was cold, devoid of emotion, and his stony gaze was fixed on the craftswoman.

“Well, I…uh…well…the thing about that is,” Toraka stuttered. “Well, I see that I’ve, uh, stepped in it, haven’t I? When you put it that way, it makes what I said a bit nasty, doesn’t it?”

“There is…truth in your words. There is…truth in mine. When golems are bad, you crush them. When people are bad, you crush them. When animals are bad, you crush them. When demons are bad, you crush them.”

“Well, that’s a simple way to put it…but I suppose it’s on point, without getting into the finer points of ethics.”

“It’s a start,” Alex said. “We humans haven’t figured out the ethics of the world in all its fine points, I don’t expect Claygon to figure them out without at least a few hundred years of thought.”

“Anyway, sorry about what I said,” Toraka cleared her throat.

“Apology…accepted…you will no longer be considered a ‘bad person’. You will no longer be crushed.”

Both Alex and Toraka froze.

“Claygon…” Alex panicked, thinking back to earlier days where he chose violence regularly. “I—”

“That was…a joke…” the golem interrupted him. “I have…learned of humour from…father. Ha…ha…ha…ha…”

Cold, stilted laughter boomed through the lab, cementing itself in Alex’s psyche, likely waiting to ambush him in his nightmares.

Toraka leaned into Alex and whispered. “You taught your golem to have a terrible sense of humour.”

The young wizard could say nothing in his defence as Claygon’s laughter filled the evening gloom.